Wednesday, 12 April 2017

Up just before 8 - the sun rises through my window around then, very quiet and peaceful on clear blue days - and go for a 7 km run through the nearby Parc, back along the railway line, along the river, and back. It's not an "obvious" running route though; I suspect that the far side of our local bit of "river" is the correct route.

B'fast, moderately quickly - only one coffee - to get to the Rowing by 10, but I needn't have rushed: there was some faffing around and we didn't get off till 10:30. The ladies had done their VIII as an early - 8 am - outing; we borrowed Sarah and Rachel so Simon E and Steve O could go off in the quad. It went well; better sat and more enjoyable; we got up to 30 whilst keeping our form fairly well.

After that I skipped lunch in favour of a shower and a walk into town; this lead to me walking in about 1 pm and it was quite hot any time when I wasn't in the shade, which was moderately often to start. I had intended to stop in a bar or somewhere for lunch, but as so often with me none of them looked quite right so I didn't stop till I got to the cathedral. Which is really very big. Bigger than you think in fact. It also had a big queue so I sat in the shade and waited for it to go down somewhat. Inside, as I'd half suspected from the outside, it is a touch disappointing; it is more big than anything else, but not more interesting. Doubtless my ignorance and lack of perception. But the stained glass, for example, might have been quite nice but with the walls being so big the windows are far away. The orange courtyard in the back is nice. The elliptical chapel makes a good pic.

After that I really should have found somewhere quiet to sit down but I didn't. I also managed to find a somewhat unsatisfactory path back along the riverside that probably wasn't intended to be walked. But, it was all fine really. Back not much before I'm due to row again in the 18:15 outing, which is Men Only this time. Me at 7 again, Conor for some reason hiding at 2. Also good; not quite as well sat as this morning, but faster. Towards the end we managed to snag an underwater wire not properly buoyed on the fin, resulting in amusing bending and a distinct steering problem. Fortunately the centre's Mr Fixit had only just left the site so we got him back and he replaced it, with some hammering and grinding and the second fin fitted to his satisfaction.

Dinner at the centre, then out on the town for those who wanted to; I stayed in.

Tuesday, 11 April 2017

Day two starts with me going down to the lobby for breakfast, which doesn't work well, as breakfast is at the top on the sixth floor. But with that little error corrected I have the usual sort of buffet you expect in a 4* hotel, including lots of coffee and orange juice and. this being Spain, little bits of dried ham. After, after some internetting, it is time for a run: I go West, down the hill I didn't know was there, over the river, and into the Casa de Campo; see GPS trace. Despite that being a 12 km run I didn't get all that far into the Campo. A quick shower and pack and check out: time for the Prado.

Happily all is walkable so I trundle off; my bag isn't heavy and I hang my coat off it and keep to the shade and it's pleasant. At the Prado, there's a queue for tickets which I stand in for a bit before a functionary says go to the far end so we do and there's no queue. What am I to look at? First up is Goya's "black paintings" which are pretty weird but well worth seeing; "Saturn eating his son" is dead famous. There's a lot of other stuff there of course: the 2nd and 3rd of May for example. After more than an hour I break for the cafe which is a glassed-in courtyard at the back. Then another hour of pix, disappointingly I don't find the Bosch which I was expecting.

To the train station. I have an hour free so get coffee, juice and a goats-cheese sandwich on decent bread. The train goes from the first floor, it turns out that the whole "old station" has been turned into a jungle / boutiques, and the new station built off the back. And they have stupid security - why on Earth would you scan baggages for internal travel? Sigh.

Train is swish and new; Eurostar-like. And not at all full. Countryside between Madrid and Cordoba is quite empty: few signs of habitation, mostly olives or oaks spaced with pasture, gentle hills. From Cordoba to Seville more habited and farmed. Cruise into Seville a little early; I walk from station to hotel Barcello and am just getting confused by reception when Dan turns up; it turns out I'm Angela, so to speak. Anyway I have a room and we wander off to the rowing centre which is very close, roughly as the VIII that is out, comes in. Thence dinner in the residence by the rowing centre: basic-but-plentiful rather like last year. After dinner to the Barcello for drinks and then, for me at least, bed; for the young folk, a walk into town for the nearest bar.

Sunday, 9 April 2017

This year's rowing camp is in Seville. Ole. For reasons I dimly remember I chose to fly to Madrid, stay overnight, and get the train to Seville tomorrow. I'm at the hotel Eurostars Plaza Mayor, which is in a side street not too far away from said PM. It's fine; the room is clean and has Wifi and all the rest is just detail.

Miriam kindly drove me down to Stanstead; we got up before 6, went downstairs to discover that the noises in the night were indeed E and Mdy ensconsing themselves in the living room. Quick b'fast pick up back remember backup-printed boarding pass and we're off; it is a misty morning with clear skies and the orange sun rises as we drive down to a clear day. Couldn't it be raining here? Security, the traditional theatre, is crowded but everyone has got used to the pantomine so it is efficient and quick: 15 mins through. They don't query my I've-checked-its-legal 4.5 cm Swiss Army miniknife. I have time for a coffee to relax then onto gate and a pain free boarding. The flight is full, I have a window seat, and read Hayek: tRtS. See Brian and P as they board later.

Land. Well, here we are, but where are we? I have totally not done my homework: I have no idea where in relation to Madrid the airport is, and I've failed to pre-load Maps onto my phone. Sort that out with airport grotty free Wifi and discover town is ~15 km SW. Well... I could walk. Why not? It's a sunny day and I want to see the place. Maybe it's too hot outside. Checks. No, it's fine. Let's go!

As usual, escaping the immeadiate environs in the right direction turns out to be the hard part, especially when it involves crossing the usual sorts of roads near airports, but I get there via some interestingly wild grass in the central reservations.

The route in starts off well; pleasantly shaded through pines. Of course lots of it is city too. The one bit I do rather regret is this:

That's the gates at the back of the Parque Quinta de los Molinos. Sadly, there's only one way in and out, so my detour into it became a dead end, the more so because of course I did climb the gate and squeeze through the gap you can see and go to the far wall and circle round it and eventually found a corner I could climb (with bees in the stonework!) but alas the drop down the far side was just a bit too big.

The GPS trace of the walk in is here. It took 3 hours, time well spent. Seen along the way: old folk playing boules; purple trees; small bars just like in France but I kept on going.

Sunday, 2 April 2017

Another spring, another marathon. This time, Manchester. Suggested, I think, by James Annan, who ran it last year. And I thought it might make a nice change. As it turns out, it was a nice change, though one way and another it wasn't significantly less hassle, travel-wise, then going to Holland.

You might ask: "if you cruised that, why not try a bit harder and do a bit better?" Which is a fair question. the answer is that I hadn't done any significant long distance training since Amsterdam last Autumn; only the Folksworth 15 and a 24k along the river. So I really just wanted to get under 4 hours again, which I'd failed at in Amsterdam by a whisker. And I didn't want to spoil that by running too fast and then blowing up. Arguably that only applied to the first, say, 3/4 of the race giving me no good excuse for the last 10 k. But meh; it was going well, I know my habit of falling off a cliff at the end, I'm happy.

So this is my best result since early 2014; and my fourth best of 12. I think that reflects my general fitness declining somewhat since the "great year" of 2013; largely due to pressure of work.

Of the run: the race makes the very sensible decision to have wide (2-road-lane) start area pens, which is then constricted down to about 10 feet wide briefly just before the start on a right-angle turn, before widening out onto the actual start line. Which means that you can run, unrestricted, right from the start. Excellent. They're also quite unfussy (read: I saw no marshalls) about exactly which pen you go into (which makes sense really: there are no constraints on what time you promise beforehand). So since it was convenient, I started just in the gap between C and D, just a little ahead of the 3:45 pacers. That lead to a steady stream of people overtaking me, but not too fast, so it was fine. I held the pacer off till 30 k, which was fine, as (since they started let-us-say 1 minute after me) that gave me ~14 minutes in hand over the last 12 km.

The first 21 km were fine; I started at 5:10 and faded according to plan to 5:20, and so got 1:50 for the first half, giving me a comfortable cushion for the second half. But! I've been there before and lost all that comfort, so I was more careful. One expression of that care was stopping for a pitstop at 25 k, mostly because I needed it, but partly to take off whatever time it would take early, so I could factor it in. As it was I managed a high-quality Formula-1 style 50 second stop. At that point my fade hadn't really kicked in, so I got 6:14 for that lap, and hardly lost any of my notional cushion.

Things started to slow a bit at 30 k, where my splits dropped from 5:20 to 5:40 and stayed there; then dropped to 6 at 35 and stayed there; but by 39 k I started to feel a bit ashamed of cruising quite so easily, and speeded up a little. Vignette from 2k out: man on bicycle cycling next to his son: "come on now, you're nearly there, and you're over the worst bit". Son: "No. I can assure you that this is the worst bit". For me, about 7-8-9 k out was the worst: still a ways for the line, and beginning to get tired.

One nice feature of the route is that between 14 k and 22 k the outward and returning streams are on two sides of a normal road; so you get to see the leaders coming back; and somewhat later I cheered on James as he went by. To my surprise the leading pack were all white; which will be why it was won in 2:20 rather than 2:08 or somesuch.

By happy chance I met Elissa Tennant-Brown at the start; she said, tentatively, "did you row the Boston marathon a few years back?" And indeed, yes, I had, when she was our cox. I also met her at 32 k when she ran past me; and then said hello past the finish. She got 3:44, 7 minutes better than me, probably accounted for by sticking to her 5:20 while I dropped half a minute or more per k over the last 10 k.

Of the arrangements: I had intended to B+B an hour south of Manchester, and drive to there and then from there. But quite late James turned out to have a spare bed so I slept with him; and this enabled me to take take the train. Less hassle than driving if somewhat more expensive. Cambridge to Manchester is not especially easy, and in some ways getting to Rotterdam is easier. The Holiday Inn in the MediaCity part of Manchester (well, Salford officially) is achingly clean, and there was a pasta place nearby that James had thoughtfully booked. And walking from the main station took only a bit more than an hour, all pleasantly along the canals. If I was going to do it again I'd probably turn up earlier and give myself some time to look around; on a pleasant weather weekend as this was it's a nice place, and a coffee along the canals would have been relaxing. And there's always the matchsticks to look at.